Winter Projects

The garden continues on! Would you believe it? February 2012, and still trying to reach my goal. Though I did grow over 100 pounds in a 3.5x9 ft space on my balcony -- a 3.5x9ft space on the third floor, mind you, that couldn't be entirely filled with plants and soil (cause you need somewhere to walk to reach all the amazing harvests!). That's nothing to put ones nose up at! And here I am, a little older and a little wiser in the ways of small-space gardening.

I've gotten more technologically savvy with a grow light under our counter space, and have been growing lettuces throughout the winter. We've had a good bit of chard and kale and arugula and lettuces to munch on. That's me with my indoor lettuce greens in the pictures above.

Some work men came and cut down a maple tree near our house. When I saw the piles of logs outside our window where the tree had been I was momentarily sad, cause I really liked that tree, but then I got to thinking. Maple. Isn't that one of the slightly picky shiitake mushroom's favorite wood types? And they are supposedly not too hard to grow AND other mushrooms like it too. Hmmm. The phrases "excellent opportunity" and "we really can't pass this up" started floating through my mind.

The tree-cutting guys didn't have the ability to take all the logs at once, and there was a nice big pile. So one by one... the pile mysteriously got smaller. A log showed up in our living room after New Year's. James came home and said "whoa, how did you get that thing up the stairs!" Sore muscles and aching quad legs muscles are all I have to say about that. I ordered the mushroom plug spawn online from Fungi Perfecti. They had a sale for a whole kit and you got 3 hardwood mushrooms types: oyster, shiitake, and reishi (a medicinal immune-system-boosting tea mushroom). I would also get wax, a rubber mallet, and a drill bit with a stopper to drill the holes for the plugs to the right depth. It was $45. My hobby budget would be spent, but hey. Research and development is very important.

As I type, we currently have 6 log segments in our house. Yeah, ok, they are a bit large. Some of them. And yes, some of them are located in our bedroom. But really, I think they look rather classy.

To date, I inoculated the logs using all three varieties and are storing them in tubs around the house (bedroom and office included). James is skeptical, so these woody, "little" guys might move on to my office space sometime in the near future.

But yes, it's an adventure. The following are the smaller subset of the log family in our house. They are getting inoculated with oyster mushroom plug spawn.

One of our "dainty little ones" getting a warm bath soak before getting inoculated.

Me hammering away with my shiny rubber mallet. I'm hammering shiitage plug spawn into the holes in these pictures.

Painting the holes over with wax. This is a food grade soy wax. Helps keep in moisture.

Wow, aren't they beautiful! "Maybe they don't permanently occupy the dining room table," says my practical husband. They are beautiful, but yes, I am sure he's right. Mushrooms aren't used to being the center of attention normally.

I was so proud. Here's some other of our classy logs hanging out around the house. Lovely, aren't they?

Did you see the small black splotches below? That means this one is inoculating very well!! So exciting.
And here's one of our bigger mushroom centerpieces.

Mushrooms really are amazing organisms.